Barbados Warned Not To Give Away Its Tax 'Birthright'

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

13 May 2002

Speaking during a recent Central Bank/University of the West Indies (UWI) Policy Forum on the Barbadian international business sector, senior lecturer Rose Marie Antione warned lawmakers not to sign away the jurisdiction's birthright with regard to taxation, according to a report in the Barbados Advocate.

Ms Antoine said that putting legislation into force as the result of pressure from international enforcement agencies, without considering the implications for the international business sector could be risky, and warned against broadening the scope of the country's legal assistance legislation further to include tax matters.

'We have to make a clear distinction between tax matters and other matters,' the UWI academic told those attending the forum. 'We are willing to assist all the way with crime and drugs, but we should not sign away our birthright when it comes to taxation.'

According to the Barbados Advocate, Ms Antoine concluded by observing that although fellow low tax jurisdiction, Bermuda, has agreed to assist international agencies in matters of tax enforcement, Barbados is on 'very clean safe legal ground in not doing so'.

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